Help! Powder Blue Tang will only eat Nori!

yzguy01250

yzguy01250

New member
Have any of you run into this issue before? At the LFS, I made them feed the fish for me two days in a row before I bought him. They fed mysis and he gobbled it up. Now I've had him at home in my tank for two weeks and he won't touch anything but the nori I have clipped to the glass. Typically, I would only offer them nori 3-4 times a week, but I have been forced to keep it in there at all times, because he now won't take mysis, either kind of flakes I'm offering or pellets! He's starting to noticeably lose weight...

Are there any tricks you have tried to get them to eat? I've been rolling up flakes and pellets in nori and soaking them in selcon hoping he will start trying them, but he just eats around everything and eats the seaweed. I don't know what else to try.
 
Side note... I have some garlic extreme and gave that a try, but it didn't seem to do anything for the tang as far as increasing appetite.

My black clarkii loves that stuff though...

I really don't like putting that stuff in my reef, so I only tried it once. Maybe I'll give it another whirl...
 
Nori is a good food for tangs; what's the problem? Maybe it just doesn't like any of the other stuff you are feeding. Maybe it just needs more time to acclimatize. I recently took in a Sailfin that was eating everything in its prior home, but then ate nothing in my tanks for close to 3 weeks. After that it started eating everything again. I give my tangs a sheet of nori daily; it last about 2 minutes.

FWIW, garlic, selcon ..... whatever ..... are all of marginal use as a feeding stimulant IME. Most fish need some time to settle in and may refuse food for a while. That using garlic, etc. 'magically' gets a fish to eat is coincidence frankly.
 
Blaker said:
I got some of my fish eating using selcon
Click to expand...
Thanks for all the responses!

Blaker - I've been trying that and it hasn't done much, but I'll keep at it!

CoralsAddiction - I've tried seaweed based flakes, but he doesn't seem to want to eat them yet. I'm going to keep trying those though, because everything in the tank seems to like it.

ca1ore - I would like to supplement the tang's diet with some protein if possible. I've always figured the more variety I can give my fish the better, so they are getting a mixture in their diet. Like I said, he has been losing weight just eating seaweed, even though he stuffs himself with it all day. Maybe there is another issue... parasite?

I'll keep my fingers crossed that he starts accepting meaty foods eventually.
 
ca1ore said:
Nori is a good food for tangs; what's the problem? Maybe it just doesn't like any of the other stuff you are feeding. Maybe it just needs more time to acclimatize. I recently took in a Sailfin that was eating everything in its prior home, but then ate nothing in my tanks for close to 3 weeks. After that it started eating everything again. I give my tangs a sheet of nori daily; it last about 2 minutes.

FWIW, garlic, selcon ..... whatever ..... are all of marginal use as a feeding stimulant IME. Most fish need some time to settle in and may refuse food for a while. That using garlic, etc. 'magically' gets a fish to eat is coincidence frankly.
Click to expand...
I agree about garlic extreme. I don't think it does much.

Selcon at least has some vitamins and minerals in it. I figured I could help the tang out by giving him some extra nutrients with the seaweed since he's not eating anything else.

I don't know... I'm probably over analyzing it.
 
yzguy01250 said:
Today he seems a little lethargic, too. I think the weight loss is catching up with him. Hope I don't lose him.
Click to expand...

I had a Naso that never ate anything but Nori for years. If your PBT is on the decline while eating nori, I would consider it may have internal parasites.
 
Hmmmn, I didn't actually note the part about weight loss. I have generally found that nori is a terrific food to get weight on tangs, so there may be an underlying problem. I would feed as much nori as it will eat, and treat with prazipro.
 
ca1ore said:
Hmmmn, I didn't actually note the part about weight loss. I have generally found that nori is a terrific food to get weight on tangs, so there may be an underlying problem. I would feed as much nori as it will eat, and treat with prazipro.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice, ca1ore. I'll give prazipro a try and keep giving him as much Nori as he'll eat! Hopefully he starts to gain some weight. Such a beautiful fish. It would be a shame to lose him.
 
ca1ore said:
Hmmmn, I didn't actually note the part about weight loss. I have generally found that nori is a terrific food to get weight on tangs, so there may be an underlying problem. I would feed as much nori as it will eat, and treat with prazipro.
Click to expand...
What about dosing his seaweed with metro? I already have some of that laying around. Would that knock out any internal parasites he may have?
 
I've had this issue in the past as well. My solution was simple.

I laid some nori out like a cigar paper, and mixed up some pellets and frozen food in a separate container. Let the mixture sit for a little while while the juice from the frozen makes the pellets soft (not mush, but not hard).

Once everything has thawed and the pellets are soft place a row of the mixture in the nori that has been rolled out, and tuck in both ends of the nori before rolling it up like a cigar. The juice from the food will soften the nori to keep it from tearing. Put the nori food roll on a veggie clip, and add it to the tank. As the purple attacks the nori, it will get bits of the other food. As the other food floats around the nori, it should start pecking at it, and hopefully this will kickstart the transition to other foods...

It's basically the same thing you've done with some frozen juices. Hope this helps...

Edit: I'm in agreement with the prazi as well. With the fish being so new and a high risk fish to begin with, I'm assuming it's in a QT tank, correct?
 
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CedzAquAddictio said:
I've had this issue in the past as well. My solution was simple.

I laid some nori out like a cigar paper, and mixed up some pellets and frozen food in a separate container. Let the mixture sit for a little while while the juice from the frozen makes the pellets soft (not mush, but not hard).

Once everything has thawed and the pellets are soft place a row of the mixture in the nori that has been rolled out, and tuck in both ends of the nori before rolling it up like a cigar. The juice from the food will soften the nori to keep it from tearing. Put the nori food roll on a veggie clip, and add it to the tank. As the purple attacks the nori, it will get bits of the other food. As the other food floats around the nori, it should start pecking at it, and hopefully this will kickstart the transition to other foods...

It's basically the same thing you've done with some frozen juices. Hope this helps...

Edit: I'm in agreement with the prazi as well. With the fish being so new and a high risk fish to begin with, I'm assuming it's in a QT tank, correct?
Click to expand...
CedzAquAddictio... Hilarious! I love that other people have tried rolling up food in nori. I thought I was pretty creative with that idea, but apparently not. I'll try adding the frozen food, too.

I only quarantined him for a week and then put him in the DT... I know I know...
So, my next questions is will prazi harm my reef or do I need to trap him and get him back in my quarantine?
 
Well, my college days reminded me that rolling up stuff made me hungry. LOL...

I've read that prazi is reef safe, but I've never done it myself. Any chance of treating it separately?
 
CedzAquAddictio said:
Well, my college days reminded me that rolling up stuff made me hungry. LOL...

I've read that prazi is reef safe, but I've never done it myself. Any chance of treating it separately?
Click to expand...
Haha! Yeah, I hear ya. I rolled a pretty tight flake and pellet filled nori last night for my tang. Apparently, the skills have not eroded since college.

I'm going to have to catch him in my trap and get him in the QT. Definitely worth treating separately, but I'm worried whatever crap he has might have infected the other fish. Hopefully not... crossing fingers.
 
Another thing to try is my achilles tang would eat nori in front of me but he would never eat mysis in front of me I would have to put the food in the tank and walk away from it sounds weird but worked for me
 
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